


Traitors and Home

by WhiteFoxKitsune (ProwlingThunder)



Series: Little Stars [38]
Category: Invasion America (Cartoon)
Genre: Alien Biochemistry, Alien Boogieman, Alien Culture, Alien Prisons, Gen, Imprisonment, Trapped Boogieman, alien society
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8127232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/WhiteFoxKitsune
Summary: He got caught, and there is no one to blame but himself. No-- wait. Yes there is.





	

_Breathe._  
  
He did, concentrating on that, because if he didn't, he would start thinking. And Aran did not want to think. Thinking had gotten him put in this three-by-six by four-and-a-half in the first place. He was sure they had picked this one just to make him particularly uncomfortable. And he wasn't entirely sure he didn't deserve it. He had, after all, been plotting against them for quite the while yet, and doing a very successful job of it. He was absolutely certain they would have never have suspected if there was not something _very_ wrong with his father.  
  
Aran Reikou was normal. He knew that. As did everyone else. But normal for Mindbreakers was not normal for regular Tyrusians, or even other nobles. Because of the way Mindbreakers were...well, wired, they simply couldn't be the same.  
  
Having given up every other mental skill, and every physical well-bred healing and strength, in the evolutionary exchange for their telepathy and telekensis. The families that made up their circle were Nobles, and only a dozen in the modern days. It had been once a large collection. Many families had died as Tyrus aged, however, too stubborn to go to the domes as the air of the world became poluted and corrupt. It was the home they had known for generations, and the Oosha then had not tried to swayed their minds.  
  
They would have come, Aran knew. They would still be alive now, he was certain.  
  
But the Oosha had said nothing, and their lungs, polluted, had collapsed and withered, unable to pull oxygen from the windless air.  
  
If Aran were any other type of person, he would have been angry. He was Tyrusian, but they were his people. A class within a caste, and his. Nevermind it had happend generations ago. The average Noble would have. Many of the peasantry were. Aran knew from talking to soldiers that many peasant families were not in the domes. They eeked out a living outside, with lifespans so short, Aran sometimes wondered how they managed to continue.  
  
But Aran was a Mindbreaker. And a Mindbreaker was sufficiently detached not to be angry, and not to genually care about how the peasants lived. It was a gift from their evolution, but it isolated them from every other Tyrusian- every other species. Aran wouldn't trade it for the world.  
  
....and yet... Commander Tate _had_.  
  
 _Breathe._  
  
Aran Reikou had been branded a traitor. And he was, he knew. In so many ways, and more then just the accused crime. He had believed that the Oosha had died, so long ago, when the Oosha had never before died. Always, always, the Oosha would step forward after the Hundred Days of Mourning, carrying a new body, a new life. But the Dragit had.  
  
Aran had been young then, and so he had been confused. Even he knew that the Dragit was not their leader. The Dragit was Bennu's pet, given to the Oosha as a gift, but still a pet. Where was the Oosha?  
  
He'd needed his father to explain what had happend. And he'd believed him, not trusted, but believed, as any young child dependant on the only person in their lives would believe. Because trust, loyalty, belonged wholly to the Oosha, and neither sire or dame was allowed to claim it.  
  
And then Aran had followed the Dragit. Had followed him, not simply because he was the one who remained, but because of his own need for vengence. The humans had taken his Oosha, his King, his God, and bound him so he could not return. He had never wondered how the humans had did it; he simply knew that they had. And he had known that to bind something so great, they must truly be powerful indeed.  
  
Aran probably would have continued following blindly, weeding would-be traitors out from the Base and forts, killing potential rebels, sending rapists to their deaths.. if the information in Commander Rafe's mind had not been vital and necessary to gain access to immediately.  
  
 _And once Commander Tate knew what I had seen, I became a threat. A traitor._  
  
What had they expected, when from Commander Rafe's vision he had seen the Oosha's future body? When he had seen the Oosha Himself leave to lead the rebels? When he had seen the Oosha's mortal, human wife?  
  
 _And Amie._  
  
Aran may have been a fanatic who circled only the Oosha, but he did know the other gods by name. It was prudent not to upset them in his worship, so that when he did, indeed, have to ask them to listen to his prayers, they were more inclined to listen. And Amie influenced everything, from childbirth to war, and had a stronger sway then most other Gods, even in their own focus. To have Amie looking after you, guiding your hand as the Oosha did, then the Dragit could fight it all he wished. They would not conquor Earth.  
  
 _But I stayed in the army, rather then find the Oosha._  
  
It had made sense then. Stay, and try to buffer his source of information from others. And it had worked, until his sire had shown his face and dove into Commander Rafe's mind himself, not with the intentions to simply look and mold, but to _Break_ , to dive into the core that made the man himself and rip it asunder. Aran had not been permitted to stay, for when Tate had turned his back on his son, the soldiers that had accompanied the Commander had taken down the bigger threat.  
  
Himself.  
  
Not that it was bad, precisely, to be known as the bigger threat. It stroked Aran's ego seven men had grabbed him, when in fact it would have simply taken one to hold him. Their lost strength made them weak, so much so that Aran could never even have hoped to pass the Academy on physical strength alone. He could never have been a simple soldier, because a few months into Basic training with their Drill-master, and even those who'd come in from the peasantry had been able to lay him flat. It had been humiliating, and so Aran had learned to avoid hits and grapples, and catch his enemy when they were vulnerable and overextended.  
  
It only worked in a one on one fight, and only on people his own size. His father's men were huge- tall, with broad shoulders, and obviously some Ga'lim blood. Which made them stronger and more dangerous, and yet, Aran had only been able to feel betrayal when they had hoisted him to his feet.  
  
Strangely, he didn't get it when he looked to his father.  
  
 _You're of the Ga'lim! You know the Gods from your grandfather's knees! How could you?_  
  
But he had said nothing, and forced them to drag him to his cell, stubbornly digging his heels in. It was enough that they should have broken him to little smitherines, but strangely, he was untouched.  
  
Aran would have welcomed injury and broken bones, more then to what he knew was coming. And by Oosha's name, he did know. His sire intended to _Break_ Commander Rafe, and there was only one reason for that.  
  
 _Commander Rafe is strong enough to survive it._ And he would, Aran knew, because the man had a strong enough will to manage. And once broken, Commander Rafe would not be bound to the Oosha, to the Royal Lines. _They're going to make him kill the Oosha he loves like a brother, and the body he loves like his own son. And Amie...._ Aran knew very well what would happen to Her. Knew, because it was a Mindbreaker's responsibility to come up with _What If_ s and create plans to circumvent them.  
  
 _I hope She dies._ Which was not meant for it's cruelty, but as a mercy from Aran's prayers. What would happen to the Oosha's immortal daughter would not be pleasant, and he could only beg Her death.   
  
"Dinnertime."  
  
Aran didn't have to open his eyes to know it was the same guard from all the times before. The man wasn't Ga'lim, but pure Tyrusian born, and from the peasantry. He looked upon him like Aran were something particularly foul, and Aran found he could not bring himself to care. At least they had not brought Talon to play the part. That would rub salt into the wounds he himself steadily opened. There was simply too much time to think.  
  
"How long has it been?"  
  
The guard snorted, slid the tray in through the side, and then closed Aran's cage once more, casting the cell into darkness. Aran didn't move. The small box he had lived in for some time- his hair had been short when he had been captured, cut off to barely an inch in length to help him hide in the American military, but now it nearly reached his shoulders. He knew his hair grew very fast, but in the very least it had been months since he had been locked up.  
  
The control collar around his throat itched. It was a new tool in the Dragit's arsenal for prisoners, meant to keep them from exersizing their mental prowess. And it worked. Before, Aran had never been able to keep himself from meeting minds with another. He should have been able to feel the guard's mind, dip into it, instinctively, for the information which he had craved. He should have been able to feel the minds of the other prisoners he knew to be around him, each in equally small, bland boxes with a waste disposal, small sink, and a beeping blue light above the slide door alone as their only company.  
  
Aran couldn't.  
  
His world had never been so small before, but he knew, until his father came to _Break_ his own mind, this was his home.  
  
 _Breathe._


End file.
